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Friday, November 30, 2018

“Shinto” by
Paula R Hartz exists in several different editions. I have the third edition,
which is more colorful than the first one. It´s also grossly overpriced at all
vendors I´m familiar with! Thank god for Black Friday…

While
Shinto´s earliest written sources or “sacred scriptures” are from the 8th
century AD, the religion itself is probably much older. Indeed, in a non-imperial variety, Shinto
might be the ancient pagan tradition of Japan, or at least of the ethnic group
today known as the Japanese. It certainly incorporates ideas often considered “primordial”
or “primitive”, such as ancestor worship, shamanism
and animism. Originally, there were probably no Shinto temples either, worship
taking place at particularly stunning places in nature. However, when Shinto
was first codified, it served to legitimize the imperial power and the imperial
line, notoriously claiming that the Japanese rulers are descended from the sun
goddess Amaterasu herself.

Throughout
its history, Shinto has been combined with other traditions, Confucianism and
Buddhism in particular. Today, many Japanese adhere to both Shinto and
Buddhism, which often baffles causal Western observers for whom only one
religion can be True (read: Christianity). During some periods, Shinto and
Buddhism were in fierce competition rather than harmony. This was the case
after the Meiji Restoration until the defeat of Japan in World War II. During
this period, Shinto was a state cult of the emperor, his regime and “Japan”
(really the Japanese Empire). Apart from State Shinto, there are other manifestations
of this tradition, known as Shrine Shinto, Folk Shinto and Sect Shinto. I
previously reviewed a “Sect Shinto” book, written by Motohisa Yamakage.

Paula R
Hartz´ book is a good overview of Shintoism, chapters dealing with everything from
its history and mythology to basic temple ritual. Various colorful festivals
are also covered. And yes, those strange antics of Sumo wrestlers turn out to
have a religious explanation. The author is broadly pro-Shinto, and perhaps
takes a too romantic view of Japanese history, or at least tries hard to do so!
If she succeeds is perhaps another matter. The book also briefly discusses
Japanese Buddhism and the so-called New Religions, inevitable when writing about
a country where a single person can belong to several different religions or
even syncretize them.

In a daring
move, Hartz tries to explain what “Kami” actually means… OK, that was a joke,
but to a modern or Christianized Westerner used to easy definitions or very
personal gods, it *is* difficult – at least initially – to understand the
concept of mostly nameless, faceless “spirits” who somehow also double as “forces”
and even physical objects…I think!

“Shinto” is
part of a series called “World Religions”, although it´s difficult to see how
an almost exclusively Japanese phenomenon can be called a “world” religion.
That being said, I nevertheless recommend this book for people completely new
to the subject, although finding it in a library might perhaps be a better idea
than buying it outright, unless the Kami recently blessed you with some extra
funds...

“The Weird
of Hali: Innsmouth” is a peculiar novel by John Michael Greer. It´s the first
in a projected series of seven Lovecraft-themed novels. I think two volumes have
been published so far. “Innsmouth”
is the only one I´ve read. It´s not a horror story, nor is it a Lovecraft pastiche or ditto parody. In fact, there is very little H P Lovecraft
in this story of the return of the Old Ones, the whole thing rather smacking of
a certain John Michael Greer. But then, that´s the point somehow!

Greer´s
blog has often criticized Lovecraft´s racism and general fear of “the
biological”, and “The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth” could be seen as an extended
polemic against the creator of Great Cthulhu. Notoriously, Lovecraft didn´t
really believe in the occult. Greer, by contrast, does. The novel is imbued with
a “pagan” perspective where the world is inhabited by countless of
spirit-beings and intelligent creatures of various shapes and forms, many of
whom want nothing to do with humanity, and some who are more advanced. The
latter could be seen as “gods” from a human perspective. The cosmos and nature
are cyclical, with alternate phases of creation and destruction, and this “crawling
chaos” is something to be affirmed and embraced, not shuddered at. No
transcendent personal creator-god of the Biblical type seems to exist,
everything being a product of an impersonal life force, called “voor” in the novel.
Humans play only the smallest part in this scenario. Greer rejects both the Christian
notion that we are “the crown of creation”, the Renaissance claim that humans
are the measure of all things, and the modern idea of unlimited “Progress”
(usually thought of in technological terms). He uses Lovecraft´s fear of
degeneracy and the biological to launch a general critique of the Western
fixation with (supposed) “rationality” that ultimately leads to the
annihilation of Nature and the Earth itself. (If this makes any sense as a
criticism of H P Lovecraft in particular, I leave to Lovecraft scholars to decide.)

The plot of
“Innsmouth” is set in an in-story universe which combines our reality with
the Lovecraftian universe. The main character is one Owen Merrill, a former
soldier and current down-and-out scholar at the Miskatonic University in
Arkham. Unsurprisingly, he is writing a doctoral thesis on Lovecraft from a vaguely
postmodern perspective. Arkham has so much local color that I had to
double-check that the place really is fictitious! One day, Owen (who is vaguely
based on Greer himself) discovers an unknown letter in which Lovecraft admits
that the Eldritch are real, and soon thereafter the wild hunt begins. Owen is contacted
by both the Old Ones and their opponents, a mysterious scientific brotherhood
known as the Radiance. The twist in the story is (surprise!) that the Eldritch
horror figures are the good guys…

In the
novel´s universe, Innsmouth used to be a thriving community of human-fish-octopus
crossbreeds (perhaps a metaphor for mixed race people?). When they tried to
initiate Lovecraft in the ancient lore, the conservative racialist got cold
feet and left in a hurry. Even the Orcs (called Voormis in the story) turn out
to be good. Owen´s mentor is Nyarlathotep himself, who turns out to be none
other than the Egyptian god Anubis. The Radiance are the bad guys. Their
scientific rationalism or "noology" is a form of psychotic social engineering,
perhaps even fascism, complete with long-distance mind control, paramilitary
units and robotic slaves. Fear of the biological at its finest!

Greer, who
doesn´t believe in conspiracy theory, draws heavily on such lore when
describing the Radiance: they were formed in Babylonia 3,000 years ago, are
also known as the Illuminati, and deliberately staged industrialism,
environmental destruction and so on. Despite their avowed atheism and
materialism, the Radiance try to use Eldritch curses to its advantage. A
curious twist is that the rationalist conspirators, but not the
Old Ones, know when “the stars are right” and Cthulhu will awaken, a moment
they anticipate with intense dread.

Greer has
drawn inspiration from a variety of sources for “The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth”.
Apart from H P Lovecraft and his colorful adjectives, also Robert W Chambers,
Arthur Machen and C S Lewis, although the latter influence is unacknowledged in
the author´s afterword. I think it´s obvious that the Radiance is based on NICE
in “That Hideous Strength”, a novel imbued with magic and paganism, but always
subordinated to the true god of Christianity. The novel also contains more
humorous references to Tolkien´s “Lord of the Rings” and perhaps even to Marvel
Comics superheroes – Anubis is driving some kind of Batmobile!

However, the
main source of inspiration seems to be John Michael Greer himself. The Old Ones
turn out to have a pantheistic pagan mystery religion based on magic and the
life force, not unlike Greer´s own combination of Druid Revival and Golden Dawn
esotericism. They even meet in an old Masonic hall – Greer is a Mason. Innsmouth,
despite its location near the sea, is probably based on the small town in the
Appalachians where Greer lived before he moved to New England. I already
mentioned the similarity between Owen and Greer – both men seem to have roughly
the same pastimes. And while Greer isn´t a former soldier, he apparently did
train swordsmanship when he was younger. It´s also intriguing to note that
Greer now lives in Rhode Island, which I believe was the home turf of both Chambers
and Lovecraft…

I liked the
novel. In fact, I read it in two days. Just like Greer when writing it, I had
no problem accepting the absurd plot as really real. Ironically, this could be
a slight problem if you´re the author, since the reader is presumably supposed
to be shocked or deeply disturbed by the revelation that the Ancient Ones are
real and never really left. The characters, including some of the Eldritch-related ones, feel realistic. (Are they based on actual living people?) Many other Eldritch are perhaps too cartoonish, but then, that might be part of the
comic effect. That being said, I nevertheless don´t vibrate with the “pagan”
message of this oeuvre. This cyclical world is filled to the brim with
suffering and outright evil. The Eldritch are part of this cycle. Why should we
worship fallen gods of a fallen world? I´m not a Christian, but somehow, C S
Lewis´ solution feels more appealing. The creation is awaiting its redemption,
not “the awakening of Great Cthulhu”…

Sunday, November 25, 2018

This is the
original “Kon-Tiki” documentary from 1950. It was released in the United States
in 1951, and won an Academy Award the same year. Most of the documentary is shot
onboard the Kon-Tiki itself, and I have to say that the quality of the footage
is surprisingly good, considering that it was made under somewhat unusual
circumstances over 70 years ago!

It was in
1947 that Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and a small Norwegian-Swedish crew
built a primitive raft, called Kon-Tiki after the Peruvian sun god Kon-Tiki
Viracocha, and set sail from Peru with the goal of reaching Polynesia within
100 days. The raft traversed an enormous distance at open sea until finally
running aground a reef at the Polynesian atoll of Raroia. The purpose of this
daring, perhaps foolhardy, journey was to prove Heyerdahl´s speculations that
Polynesia had been settled from South America rather than from lands to its
west. Later, Heyerdahl would carry out similar spectacular journeys across the
Atlantic and Indian oceans with the hope of demonstrating that ancient
civilizations used the sea more often than mainstream archeology would allow
for. A controversial aspect of Heyerdahl´s speculations was the idea that
Kon-Tiki, the Peruvian sun god, was a real historical person…and that he had
been a White European king. What a White man was doing in ancient Peru long
before the Spanish conquista is, of course, an interesting question.

Personally,
I consider Heyerdahl´s experiments inconclusive. However, I don´t think the matter
of South American-Pacific contacts have been completely settled yet. For
instance, Australian Aboriginal DNA was recently found in samples taken from a
South American Native tribe. And what about those famed Peruvian mummies, which
contained traces of a resin from New Guinea? There are also claims that
Japanese Jomon pottery has been found in Ecuador. Note, however, that the
trans-pacific contact in these cases must have gone in the *other* direction
than the one postulated by Heyerdahl! The matter of trans-atlantic contact between
the Old and the New Worlds probably haven´t been settled either (despite
constant claims to the contrary by the All-Knowing Skeptics) and then there´s
the entire Atlantis-Lemuria problem complex, reopened recently by the
sensational finds at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. Heyerdahl may have been wrong
about a White sun-god braving whale sharks and coral reefs to get to hula-hula
dancers at Tahiti, but I think our prehistory really isn´t as well known as
some people like to imagine…

“Kon-Tiki”
is a 2012 Norwegian historical drama film about Thor Heyerdahl´s famous
Kon-Tiki expedition, which took place in 1947. The film exists in two different
versions, one with most of the dialogue in Norwegian, the other with dialogue
in English.

Both
Heyerdahl, the journey of Kon-Tiki and his later expeditions were world famous
in their day, Heyerdahl becoming a virtual national hero in Norway. He was of
course well known in Sweden, as well. I heard about the Kon-Tiki and Ra
expeditions already as a kid. Ironically, Heyderdahl´s theories about
trans-oceanic contact between ancient civilizations were rejected by the
scientific community and remain so to this day. I also remember how Heyerdahl
was dethroned a few years before his death when archeologists and others
attacked his latest project, which was to prove that the Norse god Odin was a
real historical person, hailing either from Azerbaijan or the Russian region around
Azov (unless I´m mistaken, this is freely based on medieval Icelandic
chronicler Snorri Sturluson´s claim that Odin came from Troy in Asia Minor). Heyderdahl´s
idea that some of the ancient navigators were White Europeans ruling over
Natives doesn´t exactly chime with the present ideological climate, either.
Interesting fact: Graham Hancock claims to have known Heyerdahl…

Heyderdahl set
out to prove that Polynesia was settled from South America rather than from
Asia. To this end, he built a raft christened Kon-Tiki and recruited a small
crew. The primitive raft then sailed from Peru all the way to French Polynesia.
In 1950, Heyerdahl released his own documentary about the Kon-Tiki journey,
which went on to win an Academy Award. Ironically, this old documentary
(available on YouTube) is actually more interesting, and in its own way, more
dramatic than the quasi-Hollywood drama “Kon-Tiki” from 2012. Some of the real
action isn´t even included in the 2012 film, while other details are simply
wrong (as in made up). In the film, Heyerdahl´s second-in-command aboard the
raft, Herman Watzinger, is depicted as a cowardly fool who constantly disobeys
direct orders, something which led to protests from his family in Norway. In
reality, Watzinger was a stereotypically Aryan-looking former elite soldier and
athletics champion. (If Dolph Lundgren had been younger, he could have starred
this man in a flick!) Another difference between the film and real life is that
Heyerdahl had considerably more support IRL.

While “Kon-Tiki”
(2012 flick version) does have its dramatic moments, most of the film feels
dragging, and it also has that slightly annoying low comedy factor typical of
American releases (which the Norwegian film-makers clearly mimicked). By all
means, watch it if crazy exploration is your thing, but then, turn to
Heyerdahl´s own “Kon-Tiki” from 1950/51. As for the ancient Polynesians or
All-Father Odin, who knows…?

Saturday, November 24, 2018

I can´t say
I liked this book. Sure, “Du gamla, du friska” by Eva Danielsson and Märta
Ramsten does contain interesting facts about the Swedish national anthem “Du
gamla, du fria” and its surprisingly complex history. The problem is that the
book is written by two globalist left-liberals who quite simply hate the anthem,
nationalism and the nation-state. This makes for some bizarre reading.

Thus, the
authors (who are – surprise – ethnologists) spend considerable time debunking
various far right myths about the anthem, for instance the claim that it originally
had four verses, and that two of them have been intentionally suppressed for
being too patriotic. However, they then end up peddling their own propaganda,
claiming that the anthem has never been banned in Swedish schools “by the
government”. But the bad-thinkers quoted in the book do *not* claim that the
government banned the anthem – they make the *correct* observation that the
anthem has been banned at certain public schools by principals (cuz racist). The
mainstream media reported several such cases during the 1990s, giving the
names and the locations of the schools and the names of the principals. Perhaps
this was all fake news? In liberal-globalist newspapers, to boot? Somehow, I
find that very hard to believe! Eventually, the authors are forced to admit that
principals do indeed have the jurisdiction to ban the anthem in school,
essentially conceding the point of the nefarious dark racist forces (actually,
ordinary Swedes).

Another absurdity:
the authors constantly attack the Sweden Democrats for thinking that all
national anthems except the Swedish one has been officially adopted by law in
their respective countries, when the SD motion proposing such a move says “many”,
not “all”. Once again, the author team then concedes that many anthems around
the world indeed *have* been officially codified by law! So what on earth is
the prob then? The low quality of the polemics in this work suggests that we
are dealing with some kind of hot button topic here! Of course, if “Du gamla,
du fria” (the two-verse version) would finally be adopted by law, we could
perhaps sack the school boards who ban it in “their” school districts…

By all
means, buy this book if you can read Swedish and know next to nothing about the
National Anthem of Sweden, but take the political stuff of these two ethnology
majors with a large grain of salt.

“Kapare och
pirater” by Lars Ericsson Wolke is a Swedish book about piracy and
privateering. The author is a professor of military history. The book is
divided into two sections. The best written one deals with pirates and
privateers in general, giving a broad historical (and legal) overview of the
phenomenon. Short form: piracy has always existed, and can be effectively
countermanded only by strong empires or strong nation-states working in unison.
Absent this, piracy is ubiquitous, and the demarcation
between it and privateering not always clear. Privateers are "legal" pirates and are therefore used by strong empires and nation-states, too, as auxilliaries to the regular navies. Only international agreements can stop privateering, and they were non-existent before the 19th and 20th centuries. The second (and larger) part of the book is a
detailed history of piracy and privateering on the Baltic Sea from the 12th
century to the 19th century. Unfortunately, it´s less well written,
with the author constantly making jumps back and forth between the centuries. But
then, the history of banditry at sea *is* incredibly complex, with many bands
of pirates constantly shifting their allegiances. The book also contains
information on piracy and privateering in the Atlantic, when it was directed
against Swedish ships.

After the
Viking Age, the newly Christianized Scandinavians found themselves at the receiving
end of Viking-style attacks by Estonians, Vends and other still-pagan peoples.
This triggered the so-called Northern Crusades. After centuries of warfare, the
nefarious pagans were brought under control and the Baltic Sea was once again
safe for commerce…not! It could have been, had it not been for the constant
wars between the Christian polities themselves. Some of the pirates mentioned
in this book also show up in more general historical overviews of Swedish
history. There are the notorious Victual Brothers, allied to Swedish
king-usurper extraordinaire Albrekt of Mecklenburg, who almost made trade on
the Baltic Sea impossible due to their activities (14th century).
The motto of the Vitalienbrüder is said to have been “on the side of God,
against the rest of humanity”. Another old favorite is deposed Swedish (and Kalmar Union) king
Erik of Pomerania, who established himself as pirate overlord of Gotland after
being forced from power (15th century).

However,
it´s patently obvious from this book that everyone was encouraging pirates and
privateers, as long as they were willing and able to fight for the “good” side.
(Perhaps the Teutonic Knights came close to being “sinless” in this regard. Of
course, the knights had other foibles.) Another thing that struck me was that
the dividing line between piracy and trade isn´t entirely obvious. Pirates,
after all, have to sell their contraband. Medieval and early modern merchants
certainly wanted profits, but “free trade” or legality weren´t the top of their
priorities. All in all, it´s a dismal tale of human greed, violence and
misguided ambition that meets us in the pages of “Kapare och pirater”. In the
modern world, the Western nations no longer use privateers, but submarine
warfare comes close to the original concept, except for the little detail that
submarine crews can´t capture and sell the cargo of sunken ships!

If you´re
Swedish and want more detailed information on pretty much every war involving
Sweden, Denmark and the Hansa since the end of the Viking Age, at least as pertaining to banditry on
the high seas, this book is probably a must. However, it´s not a pretty story.
There will be war…and there will be piracy.

“Designing Utopia:
John Hargrave and the Kibbo Kift” is a colorful book about a colorful
organization, the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift. I admit that I bought it mostly because
of the strange name of the organization (which is never really explained).
Almost forgotten today, the Kibbo Kift was one of several “alternative” groups
active in Britain during the interwar years.

Formed in
1920 and originally projected as a broad, progressive alternative to the Boy
Scouts, the Kibbo Kift quickly became the private turf of John Hargrave.
Socialists, pacifists and Theosophists left the movement, and around 1924, Hargrave
was the undisputed “Head Man” of the Kindred. The supreme leader´s eclectic
personal philosophy makes it difficult for an outsider to fully understand the
purpose of his activities – this book emphasizes Hargrave´s artistic
contributions. His aesthetic strikes me as a combination of William Morris,
medieval LARP-ing and fascism. But then, many movements both left and right had
a “fascist” aesthetic during the interwar years, so the Kindred were hardly
unique in this regard. Indeed, if looked at in context, the Kibbo Kift probably
didn´t stand out as much as they do today – the early 20th century
was the high tide of innovative utopian schemes of various kinds.

What
perhaps makes Hargrave´s brainchild different is the bewildering mix of many
seemingly disparate elements, from Anglo-Saxon pageantry and Nature-worship to “globalist”
dreams of universal peace and a fascination with modern technology. Add to this
secret lodges and an interest in esotericism! But then, with the exception of
the universal peace and brotherhood thing, nationalist and fascist movements
probably came pretty close even to this eclecticism. Had I been a Marxist, I
would mockingly accuse Hargrave of a “typically petty-bourgeois belief in
Socialism without Workers, Equality without Feminism, Modernity without
Industry, and indeed, Fascism without the Fascism. Like all petty-bourgeois, he
`solves´ and then reproduces all societal contradictions in his abstract mind,
being unable to solve them through concrete praxis”. Most members of the Kibbo
Kift were lower middle class by today´s standards, while some were workers.
Most were men (the KK was explicitly patriarchal and anti-gay), but women were
allowed to join, and in practice seems to have had as much freedom as the male
members, including leadership roles in women-only activities.

Originally,
the Kinsmen (and women) resembled a re-enactment society with a strong interest
in scouting and woodcraft. One of their more original acts was a “pilgrimage”
to Piltdown in honor of the Piltdown Man! An inner core probably studied “Rosicrucian”
esotericism. During the Great Depression, Hargrave radically changed the
movement, making it more obviously political in nature. Under the new names “the
Green Shirts” and “the Social Credit Party”, the Kibbo Kift embraced the
theories of C H Douglas. I admit that I haven´t studied Social Credit, but
judging by this book, it´s a utopian quasi-socialist panacea based on ideas
about cheap credit, anti-banking legislation and a “national dividend” made
possible by complete automation of production. It was never embraced by the socialist
labor movement, and represented a kind of farmer-based populism with Christian
traits during its brief hay day in Canada. In Britain, Social Credit was
promoted by several “alternative” groups and publications, most notably A R
Orage´s “The New Age”. Hargrave´s version was more unabashedly activist, with
Kinsmen dressed in green uniforms taking to the streets, sometimes even
vandalizing property and clashing with fascist Black Shirts and Communist Red
Shirts. Several times, they tried to interrupt the deliberations in the House
of Commons by shouting about Social Credit from the public gallery! Hargrave´s
views on the fascist threat isn´t entirely clear. The book claims he hotly
denied any association with Mosley or Hitler, but his movement nevertheless
paid tribute to the Duke of Windsor (the former Edward VIII), often accused of
having pro-German sympathies. The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift disintegrated
during World War II, ironically because many members were drafted into the
military! After the war, Hargrave returned to his more occult interests, apparently
becoming a faith healer.

I´m not
sure if “Designing Utopia” really clarifies the mysteries of Britain´s most
peculiar youth organization, but at least it contains a lot of colorful artwork
and handicraft…

Sunday, November 18, 2018

I just
found this clip on YouTube. It´s a documentary, or perhaps part of a
documentary, titled “Elusive: British Cryptids”. The end credits say the
official release will be on December 7. I´m not sure how long this sneak peak
will be up, so if interested you should perhaps watch it ASAP.

To be honest, “Elusive”
is extremely dragging. It lacks the dramatic-entertainment feel I´m used to
from American documentaries. But then, perhaps that´s not so surprising, since
this is a British production. The producer has interviewed four witnesses who
claim to have seen “Bigfoot” on British soil, or at least something similar. A
fifth interviewee researches Werewolf observations.

I previously
reviewed Nick Redfern´s book “Wildman” about the British Bigfoot, and admit
that I´m somewhat skeptical to the idea of a breeding population of huge hominids
(other than Celts or Englishmen!) living in Britain at the present time.
Indeed, the bulk of Redfern´s book consist of ghost stories. Of the cases
featured in “Elusive”, several have typical paranormal traits (the red glowing
eyes). The producers are brave enough to discuss the paranormal angle, although
their favorite explanation is that we´re actually dealing with an ancient
population of Bigfeet, stranded on the British Isles. One of the researchers
claims that the howl of the Werewolf is identical to the call of the American
Bigfoot.

To make the theory stick, “Elusive” assumes that all of Europe was
once inhabited by the Wildman (there are Wildman legends from the Middle Ages),
with the British cryptids being a relict population left behind when the North
Sea rose and made contact with the European continent impossible. The
witnesses, some of whom seem to double as cryptid researchers, claim that there
are still large wilderness areas in Britain where large creatures could hide.
Maybe, but hiding isn´t enough. What do they eat? Where do they go during the
winter?

The biggest
disappointment in this sneak peak (?) is the supposed footage “proving” the
existence of the Albion gorilla. I think a disinterested observer will concur
with me that it´s just a bunch of leaves swaying in the wind…

That being
said, it seems a new front has been opened up in the “cryptid wars”, or at
least cryptid research. It´s interesting to speculate why. Is the public simply
getting bored of US squatches? Or is it easier today to accept that there might
actually be real hairy ape-men (or real ghosts) even in the backyard of some
sleepy British manor? Who knows, around 2025, maybe we´ll get a documentary
about Swedish Trolls!

Saturday, November 17, 2018

I´m
surprised there isn´t more hysteria (or exultation) around ´Oumuamua, the
mysterious object which recently entered the solar system from outside, only to
leave it shortly thereafter. Two Harvard scholars recently claimed that
´Oumuamua may be an alien space probe. You know, a UFO…? Wow! The clip above is
an interview with one of the Harvard scientists. He manages to explain the
issue eminently well.

Personally,
I would argue, on purely philosophical grounds, that it´s probably a very
exotic comet – not because I don´t believe in “aliens” but mostly because the
number of bizarre natural objects out there must be truly staggering. That
being said, it would be fascinating if The Scout was really built by an
advanced alien civilization somewhere in the constellation of Lyra (as seen
from Earth). Note especially that the probe doesn´t seem to be manned. Also,
why sent it here in particular? And how do “they” look like? Like highly
evolved crows or raccoons? (My favorite proposals, LOL) Note also that the
probe might have been on its way for so long that the Lyran builders, for all we
know, have all disappeared…

Perhaps
we´ll never get the answer. But then, so what? The cosmos, for all we know, is
simply infinite.

“The Great
Math Mystery” is a PBS NOVA documentary about the nature of mathematics. It´s
obviously quite basic, but still a good introduction to the subject. Mario
Livio, who has written several books on the topic, is prominently featured.
Roger Penrose and Max Tegmark are other well known scientists interviewed. Most
of the documentary explores the “essentialist”, “realist” or “Platonist” idea
that mathematics is an objectively real phenomenon “out there”, independent of
our puny human minds. Indeed, the narrator – taking his cues from Tegmark - suggests at several points that the world simply
*is* an intricate web of mathematical properties and relations.

“The Great Math
Mystery” does dare to mention Pythagoras, and even interviews a female jazz
musician who defends his ideas. Two ideas studiously avoided, however, are God
and Intelligent Design. This is almost comic since, of course, the realist
position is a strong argument for God´s existence. Indeed, one of Livio´s books
is titled “Is God a Mathematician?”

The latter part of the program explores the
opposite idea: that math is a construction of our minds. Some humorous
experiments with human child prodigies and lemurs (yes, lemurs) are featured,
but they prove neither position – even if math comes von oben (or von
Demiurgos), our brains must obviously be adapted to receive the information. A
better argument is that engineers frequently *don´t* use exact math to build
new gadgets. I think the Egyptian and Muslim high cultures had the same
approach to math – only applied math counts, actually building pyramids is more
important than Euclid´s axioms. Perhaps math works so stunningly well because
our scientists have chosen to concentrate at (and marvel at) those parts of the
universe where it does work? But what about psychology, sociology, meteorology and
large chunks of biology, where math doesn´t seem to work just as good? (Not
even ants seem to care about Hamilton´s equations!)

I admit a certain sympathy for
both positions in this debate. On the one hand, mathematics does seem to have
curious properties which make it difficult to believe that it´s just some kind
of clever contraption made by a distant relative of the lemurs known as Homo
sapiens. On the other hand, it´s equally difficult to believe that this
half-lemurian has managed to solve all the questions of the cosmos by
discovering pi, Fibonacci numbers or the googolplex. I get the feeling that the
“Platonist” position, while intellectually appealing, is really connected to
Western scientific hubris.

Yes, God might indeed be a mathematician, but I
suspect he-she-it is many other things besides…

This is an
interesting clip I found on YouTube. Austin Shippey has edited the old documentary "The Occult Experience" from 1985 and what you
can access above are the parts dealing with Wicca and Goddess-worship. (The full documentary is also available at another channel.) What surprised me
was that the actual rituals of Gardnerian Wicca are shown at some length, the
only exception being the sexual intercourse between priest and priestess (which
is only hinted at). Thus, we get to see an actual initiation into a coven,
during which a sky clad young man is subject to a variety of trials and
ordeals. There is also a “handfasting” ceremony, once again with almost everyone
present being in the nude. A funny detail: the male Wiccan priest, who plays
the role of the horned god, looks like Gerald Gardner! Is this some kind of
shtick among 50+ male Wiccans? Another thing that struck me was the only Black Dianic Wiccan (Black as in African-American) describing her experiences of folk Catholicism
in Louisiana. Wow. Even crazier than some Neo-Pagans, if you ask me. “Wicca: The
Occult Experience” also features Modern Pagans, including Wiccans, gathering on a street in New
York City, carrying out one of their rituals quite openly. They sure seem to have a lot of
fun! In a final segment, we meet three groups which are not Wiccans, including
the non-sectarian Fellowship of Isis (FOI). The Fellowship initiates new priestesses
at a mysterious castle in Ireland and we get to see the initiation ritual
(including the presumably “secret” part). Btw, one of the people commenting here
is apparently a member of the FOI… I admit that I got a bit more respect for
Wiccans and Neo-Pagans after watching this, mostly because the rituals seem “really
real” and the practitioners serious, in contrast to the more stereotyped
witches and confused college kids I´ve seen in other corners of the media &
entertainment industry. That being said, ritual sex with a Gerald Gardner
lookalike really aint my thing, so I hope they never try to pull that stunt in
*my* Scytho-Hibernian city-state, LOL. Otherwise recommended.

“Britain´s
Wicca Man” (or "A Very British Witchcraft") is a surprisingly sober, even boring, documentary about Gerald
Gardner, the controversial founder of the Neo-Pagan religion known as Wicca. As
a teenager, I read about Gardner´s exploits in Poul Fersling´s book “Naturligt
Övernaturligt”. Fersling didn´t seem to like the old man, and I believe he
described him as a “sadist, masochist and voyeur”. For years afterwards, I
wondered what the hell a “voyeur” might be! This documentary goes much too far
in the other direction, never mentioning the ritual sex and only hinting at the
sado-masochistic element (here called “flagellation”, a more respectable term
apparently). Perhaps this pro-Wiccan approach was needed to make Wiccans come
out of the woodwork and be interviewed. A bizarre detail is that one of the
non-Wiccans featured looks like Dumbledore from “Harry Potter”, while a male
Wiccan talking about Gardner *looks like Gardner himself*! While “Britain´s
Wicca Man” does contain some interesting material, including Gardner´s classical
appearance on BBC´s Panorama, it really only skims the surface. The name
Margaret Murray is never mentioned, and we are left pretty much in the dark
about the exact nature of the folk magic and shamanism Gardner supposedly draw
from for his new religion, described as “the only originally English faith”
(which seems to be correct – unless you count the Church of England, LOL). I
also found the British accents bloody annoying, but that´s me. Ultimately, this
production (available on YouTube) is mostly a kind of teaser trailer. I admit
that I find it difficult to take “feminists” being whipped by a horned (and
horny) god in the forest difficult to take seriously, so I probably won´t be
reading up on this subject any time soon, though. Oh, and “voyeur” means…never
mind.

Sunday, November 11, 2018

“Beasts of
the Southern Wild” is a curious film starring Dwight Henry and 9-year old
Quvenzhané Wallis (the youngest person ever to be nominated for an Academy
Award as best actress). The plot, while generally realist, perhaps even “kitchen
sink realist”, also contains elements of fantasy. Perhaps it could be seen as a
kind of folkish or quasi-folkish Americana? While it´s presumably set in the
present day, it might as well symbolize a future United States around 2050 or
2100.

The main
characters live in “the Bathtub”, a poor and isolated community off the coast
of an anonymous US state (usually believed to be Louisiana since the film was
made there). The community, which is multi-racial and slightly
counter-cultural, clearly resents wider society, symbolized
by a distant city with sky scrapers behind a huge protective wall. It´s not
entirely clear whether the Bathtub people are forcibly segregated or have
chosen to live isolated. Probably the latter, since they
refuse to evacuate the area when ordered to do so by the “proper” authorities.

The seaside
squatters have developed their very own mythology, which claims that an ancient
breed of monstrous beings, the Aurochs, are set to return and wreak havoc on
civilization once the Antarctic icecaps melt due to climate change. Indeed, the
Aurochs (who look like huge boars rather than real aurochs) do return, but it´s
not clear whether they are real, ghostly or simply a figment of the main
character´s vivid imagination. The message of the film is “Green” and
quasi-Buddhist, and Hushpuppy (the name of Wallis´ character) is frequently too
philosophical for her young age.

Otherwise,
the plot is actually quite uninteresting, focusing on Hushpuppy´s troubled
relationship with her parents, an epileptic father and a mother who is a
hooker, but the whole thing never becomes properly tragic. Indeed, “Beasts of
the Southern Wild” is actually quite romantic. 20 years ago, I would probably
have condemned a film like this as “reactionary” since it “romanticizes voluntary
poverty”, stereotypes Blacks, or whatever. I suppose I´m more laidback these
days. That being said, this isn´t my favorite flick, but I´m willing to give it
the OK rating (three stars).

Saturday, November 10, 2018

“Strange Victories”
is a famous underground pamphlet about the anti-nuclear movement, published in
1979. Strictly speaking, it´s an issue of “Midnight Notes”, a magazine or
perhaps pamphlet series published by the mysterious Midnight Notes Collective,
of which very little else is known. They seem to be anarchist, but avoid the
typical anarchist jargon in favor of one which sounds more Marxist. Sometimes,
the collective is described as “autonomist” but I admit I know very little
about the autonomist current within anarchism (it´s distinct from the milieu
usually known as Autonomen, although there may be some overlap). “Strange Victories”
has been promoted as a pro-violence pamphlet, but while the Collective doesn’t shun
violence as a means of struggle, most of the publication deals with other
issues. The main point is to criticize the anti-nuclear movement (which was
particularly strong during the late 1970´s and early 1980´s) for being
dominated by the middle class. Instead, Midnight Notes wants an anti-nuke movement
of working class people, a movement directed directly at capitalism, rather
than simply against “nukes” which threaten “all of humanity”. There is also an
implicit criticism in the pamphlet of Green movements overall.

Midnight Notes
regard the 1970´s energy crisis as a hoax. There really was no crisis – the monopolistic
energy companies raised the prices simply because they had the power to do so.
Indeed, there are no shortages of energy and other resources at all. Everyone
in the world can be clothed, fed and get a high standard of living, if only
resources would be more equitably shared. Coal in particular is a cheap and
good resource. (Today, this ideas sound awfully naïve, but there was a thriving
ecologist movement already back in 1979, so I´m not sure if the Collective
really has any excuses here.) Thus, the energy crisis is simply an attack by
capitalism on the living standards of the working class. The nuclear power
industry takes this one step further. It represents the fusion of capital and
state power, and plays a generally repressive role in society with its tightly
regimented labor force, police and military protecting it, fear generated by
it, etc. Also, nuclear power is an attempt to break the power of unionized
labor in the coal and oil sectors. As for solutions to the “crisis”, while
nuclear power has to go, there is nothing in principle which could stop
capitalism from using solar power against the working class, perhaps by hiking
*those* prices too. Thus, workers´ management of production and distribution is
the only way to deal with the “energy crisis”.

Midnight Notes
then point out that despite all the above, the movement against nuclear power
isn´t working class in character. Rather, it emerged in rural areas, usually in
the immediate vicinity of the nuclear power plants themselves. The Collective
reveals that if looked at closely, the “rural” movement is actually made up of
back-to-the-land middle class people from universities and colleges. (I suppose
a less sympathetic observer would call them “hippies”.) While they do enjoy the
support of farmers, local small entrepreneurs and such fundamentally
conservative sectors, the organized movement – in this case, the Clamshell
Alliance – is fundamentally urban middle class and faux leftist. Or rather rurally
transplanted urban middle class. This creates a strong tension between the
anti-nuclear movement and the working class, which is usually conspicuous by
its absence. The Midnight Notes Collective are scathing in their criticism of
the “leftist” intellectual types dominating the Clamshell Alliance. Being
discarded parts of the “educational”-propaganda apparatus, they have no direct
relationship to capital. They can´t protest their condition in any other way
than to pretend to represent “humanity as a whole”, but this really reflects a
relationship to capital at its most general level. The middle class hippies are
really positioning themselves as the future professional and intellectual
planners of generalized capital, a form of planning which will usher in a more “rational”
form of state capitalism. Even their seemingly radical back-to-the-land
philosophy does service to capital by experimenting with new ways of “labor
intensive” production (i.e. more exploitation, but of a “classical” sweatshop
labor kind). By contrast, ordinary workers have a direct relationship to
capital, and hence no other choice than to identify with their own “special
interests” (really class interests). They don´t really care, except in the
abstract, about whether or not nuclear power is a threat to “humanity” for the
next 500,000 years (one of the talking point of the Clamshell). No, they are
threatened by the energy crisis and its nuclear component *in the here and now*
on the basis of their proletarian position within capitalism.

The
pamphlet also criticizes the concrete structure of the Clamshell Alliance.
Decision-making was based on consensus, which according to the authors really
means that the privileged and well-educated take command. The “Clams” were organized
in affinity groups, really a kind of cliques based on personal friendship, and
hence excellent for creating social cohesion within the hippie subculture, but
excluding everyone else. Pacifism is disparaged by Midnight Notes as an elitist
tactic. Only people with long training in peaceful civil disobedience can effectively
execute pacifist actions. The actions are presupposed on the notion that the participating
privileged elements are “valuable” to society and hence can´t be touched by the
police or National Guard (seen as “lower”). If all forms of violence are
rejected, the only alternative to elitist peaceful disobedience is sheer
legalism, perhaps backed up by strictly non-confrontational protest marches at
designated places. These can mobilize the broad masses, but only as subordinates
to legalist politicians. (Shortly after the pamphlet was written, an
anti-nuclear political party was indeed formed, the Citizens´ Party.)

Despite
their “working class” perspective, I think it´s obvious that Midnight Notes
Collective were really part of the same milieu they are attacking. A “collective”
is, of course, an affinity group. How do they know so much about the Clamshell
Alliance and various “progressive” farms in New England? Because they have enough
spare time to join or visit. Why the strange poetry and obscure references to “Alice
in Wonderland”? Because they have college education. Also, note the strong
hippie flavor of the criticism against nuclear power plants at the end of
Section II. Nuclear power plants are said to be symbols of psychological
repression, they are built to suppress “obscure wishes and desires”, and so on.
Of whom? Hippies, of course. It seems Alan Watts (or was it Wilhelm Reich) was
the man even in the Midnight Notes Collective…

My main
problem with all this is something else, however. While I do sympathize or
empathize with the ecologist movement (or sections of it), their demands were
quite simply unrealistic. Without nuclear power, no nuclear weapons. Without US
nuclear weapons, Nazi Germany would have won the war. That would be a “strange
victory” indeed. During the Cold War, depending on which side you support,
either the US, the Soviet Union or China clearly needed nuclear warheads. Unless
you think anarchist “workers´ militias” work against Soviet Russian tanks…or
nukes. Today, the problem is the exact opposite: no, there aren´t “enough resources”
for everyone, they are shrinking, and due to climate change (the coal!), they
will shrink even more in the future. Who knows, perhaps the hippies will turn
out to be the real victors in this ideological confrontation. Before they get
eaten by roving packs of feral dogs emerging at midnight…

Friday, November 9, 2018

“Meeting
the Other Crowd” is a collection of fairy lore collected and edited by Eddie
Lenihan, an Irish lore-master or story-teller of some standing. Yes, it´s
Lenihan who is the “activist” I mentioned in a previous review who tried to
save a tree from being cut down by the Irish authorities, in the un-ironic
belief that said tree was a “fairy fort”.

I read
about half of “Meeting the Other Crowd”. I think Lenihan wants the tales to be
as timeless as possible, and the book therefore contains little information on
where, when and how they were collected, or what exact time-period they are
from. Some mention the potato blight, while others seem to be set during the
1950´s. The oldest story-teller is said to have passed away during the 1990´s. Most
of the stories were collected in southwest Ireland: Clare, Limerick, Kerry and
parts of south Galway.

The fairies
are described as human-like, but usually of smaller stature. Sometimes they are
distinctly uglier than humans. However, there seems to be a caste of fairies
which are tall and very attractive. The fairy are not the cartoonish and sweet
characters we remember from a childhood of watching too many Disney films. Quite
the contrary, they are dangerous, frequently abduct or attack humans, and their
“forts” and paths are forbidden territory for us. Many of the stories collected
in this volume are disturbing. In one, a fairy learns that he will never be
saved (i.e. saved by God on Judgment Day) and reacts in a very bizarre manner.
In another, a man who accidentally shot a fairy is almost abducted by
human-sized fairies dressed as undertakers, complete with a huge coffin! He
eventually has to leave Ireland altogether. Building a house across a fairy path
can lead, at the very least, to a severe case of poltergeist-like haunting.
Cutting down hawthorn bushes (believed to be sacred to the fairies) can lead to
the guilty party dying. Another consequence could be nasty traffic accidents,
if a highway is built where the fairy fort once stood.

The Irish
fairies are divided into tribes or nations, and fight frequent wars against one
another. They travel at night with their fairy horses at a lightning speed
(compare Odin´s “wild hunt”). I already mentioned the existence of several
castes. The fairy queens belong to the higher one, naturally. And yes, they
really do dance in circles. Some of their pastimes are more unexpected. Thus,
two of the stories in the book are about humans who were temporarily abducted
by fairies who needed a referee to their hurling games! (Hurling is a
traditional Irish team sport. Think field hockey combined with rugby. Apparently,
fairies take it very seriously indeed.) Clearly, these are not the Celtic
cousins of Tinkerbell, that´s for sure…

If
something “objective” is behind all these observations is another thing
entirely. A few stories mention strange lights in association with fairies.
Many other stories could perhaps be given a psychological explanation. They are
attempts to explain sudden death or paralysis, or cautionary tales about not
going out late at night. The jealousy typical of poor peasant communities form
the subtext of many tales. Riches are due to luck (“from the fairies”) and the
money soon turn out to create more problems than they are worth (once again,
due to the fairies). If anything objective is left after all these interpretive
layers have been peeled off, is left for the reader to decide. One thing I
noticed is that the fairy don’t act as “pure” spirits or ghost, but rather
like a race of little people living in our dimension of reality, albeit with unusual
abilities. Unless I misunderstood the book somehow, it claims that fairies are
mortal: they are born, and they do die. As already mentioned, they live at
actual physical locations in the landscape, usually Bronze Age burial grounds
or hawthorn bushes. They are also strongly connected to the country of Ireland,
and apparently cannot leave it (or don´t want to), since one way of escaping
them is to buy a one-way ticket to Ellis Island. I´m almost tempted to call
them cryptids…

One: Swedish globalist-liberal daily DN claims that Taylor Swift was behind the blue wave in the US midterm elections. Taylor...who? And what blue wave???Two: Taylor Swift is silent on the recent sensational theory that ´Oumuamua is an alien space probe. And now, a weather forecast...

Sunday, November 4, 2018

“The Fairy
Faith: In Search of Fairies” is a Canadian documentary about modern belief in
fairies. It´s available on YouTube. On the negative side, the documentary is
incredibly dragging and somewhat badly edited. Another problem is that many of
the persons interviewed speak with heavy Irish accents – at least, that´s a
problem if you live outside the Green Island or some of it expatriate
communities. Part of the documentary was therefore near incomprehensible to me.
On the positive side, the topic is interesting, even somewhat fascinating. The
people interviewed are British, Irish, Anglophone Canadian and Mikmaq (a Native
people in Canada). It seems the belief in fairies haven´t changed much since
the good old days. It´s intriguing that it even exists today!

Non-believers
usually picture fairies as sweet little girls with angel wings (think
Tinkerbell), but this is about as far as you can get from the traditional
beliefs. “Real” fairies are believed to be small and human-like, but
there the similarity to petit angels ends. The fairies are often dangerous. They can abduct people, cast spells on them, or cause car accidents.
They do dance and have fun, but usually don´t want to be seen by us ordinary
mortals. The fairies are associated with certain places in the landscape, such
as sacred trees, Bronze Age burial grounds, and the like. The documentary
interviews an activist in Ireland who tried to stop the local authorities from
cutting down a tree he believes is a “fairy fort”! While most eye witnesses
describe the fairies as humanoid (some look like nude girls), the documentary
also features a painter who sees them as more monstrous and vaguely
animal-like. A few benign encounters with the little people are also recounted.

But are the
fairies really real? What is the epistemological status of fairy encounters? The
interviewees who reflect on this argue that they are neither “objective” nor “subjective”,
but somewhere in between. The fairies live in the realm of imagination, the
same realm where poets and painters dwell. Presumably, “imagination” here
refers to something like Coleridge´s conception of it, or perhaps to Harpur´s notion of a daimonic reality. One of the witnesses claim that she lost
her ability to see the fairy around the time she was 19 years old, while
another says “you see them through your heart”. A surprisingly large number of
the true believers haven´t seen fairies at all. However, I suspect that the
imaginal explanation is modern, “Western” and somewhat intellectual. The Mikmaq retell uncouth fairy stories which certainly sound objective in
character. An occultist would probably explain
fairies in terms of the astral and etheric dimensions of reality, and their
shape shifting as a kind of astral glamour. In other words, fairies are really
real. So, apparently, are leprechauns…

Personally,
I find the idea of having to share this planet (or the Green Island) with a
race of dangerous dancing abductors downright intolerable, so I can´t say I
turned into a true believer in the phenomenon just yet. And if I ever see them,
I´m going to stash large amounts of iron and silver at my bug out location. Let´s hope “the little people” really are imaginal.

Saturday, November 3, 2018

“Agafia” is
a RT documentary about Agafia Lykova, an Old Believer living an isolated life
in the Siberian taiga, more specifically in the Russian Federation “republic”
of Khakassia. The Old Believers are the result of a split in the Russian
Orthodox Church during the 17th century, the famous Raskol. During
the Soviet period, Orthodox believers of various stripes were often persecuted
by the Communist-atheist regime. The Lykov family fled to the wilderness in
1938, and although they were technically still on Soviet territory, the authorities
didn´t find them until 1978. Then, a team of Soviet geologists accidentally run
into the family in the taiga. By that time, dissenters weren´t shot on the spot
as in the good ol´ days of Joe Stalin, so the Lykovs instead became national and
international celebrities. (They were presumably politically harmless.) This
has continued during the post-Soviet era, with Agafia – the last of the Lykovs –
still being fêted by international news networks.

The shtick that Agafia Lykova is a completely isolated hermit turns out to be problematic at second glance. She lives in the Siberian wilderness,
to be sure, but the RT documentary reveals that she receives substantial
amounts of aid from the outside, sometimes by chopper, and often puts people
who come to visit her to work on her farm. Some of her apocalyptic ideas are
strikingly similar to those of the Protestant fundamentalists in the United
States – thus, Agafia is afraid of perfectly ordinary bar codes, seeing them as
“the mark of the Beast”. Where did she learn this, I wonder? (Guess: Seraphim
Rose´s books!) The
documentary also reveals more disturbing things, such as incest in the Lykov
family and a relationship between Agafia and one of the geologists (who stayed
behind in the taiga). Agafia´s religious ideas come across as weird and cultish,
and I´m not sure if she is an orthodox Old Believer (pun intended). At one
point, she claims that our calendars are 8 years too short! I admit I failed to
find information about *this* particular conspiracy theory on the web…

Apart from
this documentary, which I think is Russian-French despite the English voice
over, there is also a VICE documentary available on YouTube about pretty much
the same things (it´s shorter).

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Friday, November 2, 2018

This is a
very obscure pamphlet which I review mostly to show that I´m Number One when it
comes to obscure pamphlets. Trust me, not even Amazon sells this one! “The
Bankruptcy of Syndicalism and Anarchism” was published in 1979 by Workers for
Proletarian Autonomy and Social Revolution. It was distributed in the UK years
later by a mysterious outfit codenamed BM Blob. The pamphlet is very “in house”,
even for yours truly, and deals with internal conflicts within the CNT, the
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist labor union resurrected after the death of Franco
and the reintroduction of democracy in Spain. The CNT split soon after its
resurrection (the defectors later adopted the name CGT). The authors, an
otherwise unknown group of anarchists or Left Communists, oppose both factions.
They describe the CNT as a chaotic mayhem of petty bureaucrats, careerists and
competing cliques. The intramural CNT polemics seems to have been very acerbic.
Factional opponents were accused of being “former” fascists, Trotskyites or “former
priests” (sic) as a matter of course. Well, one CNT leader in Catalonia
apparently *was* a priest! Little of substance is said about the CNT-CGT split,
which concerned whether or not the anarcho-syndicalists should stand in the
so-called union elections. CGT was for, the more orthodox anarchist CNT was
against (and hence couldn´t really function as a union in the first place). The
ultraleftists who published this pamphlet might be excused for thinking that
Spain would soon see another revolution – I assume the political situation in
the years immediately after Franco´s death was still unstable (think ETA and
the attempted coup in 1981). Today, ultraleftism is even more bankrupt than
syndicalism and I wouldn´t be surprised if these merchants of the ra-ra-revolutionary
word are themselves standing in union elections. Or, more likely, work at some
college…

“Towards a Citizens´ Militia: Anarchist
Alternatives to NATO and the Warsaw Pact” was published in 1980 by Cienfuegos
Press, associated with British anarchist radical Stuart Christie. At one point,
Christie was prosecuted for involvement in the Angry Brigade, a group of
domestic terrorists in Britain, but was acquitted. Already as a teenager,
Christie tried to assassinate Spanish right-wing dictator Francisco Franco!

“Towards
a Citizens´ Militia” gives the International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement
and the First of May Group as authors. It could be two different names for the
same group, a clandestine anarchist resistance group against Franco formed by
Spanish exiles. It´s not really clear whether they are behind the pamphlet,
though, or whether this is some kind of mystification. The publication argues
that Europe is on the brink of either authoritarian coups or a Soviet invasion,
and that it´s therefore imperative for anarchists to learn the tactics of
guerilla warfare. Then follows an overview of such tactics (and of government
counter-measures) in very small print.

Not being an expert on things military
or martial, I have no idea whether the IRSM-First of May Group´s advice makes
any kind of sense. Topics covered include roadblocks, sabotage against power
lines, how to blow up railway tracks, where to get fake IDs, etc. I´m somewhat
surprised the authorities didn´t clamp down on this material! Maybe they did –
I bought a copy years later in Sweden, not in the UK.

Politically, “Towards a
Citizens´ Militia” is very naïve. It does emphasize that the guerilla need the
support of the general population, but how is this to be accomplished?
Obviously, some kind of *political* preparatory work is needed long before the
war. Essentially, the authors want to “prove that anarchism works” by
establishing “libertarian communities”. In other words, the usual network of hippie
communes, alternative presses and vegetarian cafés. Or am I wrong? How this is
supposed to make the broad masses more sympathetic to an anarchist urban
guerilla squad in the event of a fascist coup or Soviet invasion is, alas, less
clear.

Somehow, I suspect most people would line up with NATO or even with the
Warsaw Pact…

“Kinas
brytning med Albanien” is a book in Swedish published in 1978 by the local
Maoist faithful, the so-called Communist Party of Sweden (SKP). It deals with
an event which rocked the Maoist “world movement” a couple of years earlier:
the split between post-Mao China and Enver Hoxha´s Albania. The Albanian
Communist leadership, probably due to China´s pro-American foreign policy course
and the vagaries of Balkan power politics (with the Chinese cozying up to
Tito´s Yugoslavia), had broken with Beijing and embarked on a more “leftist”
course, verbally attacking both the United States, the Soviet Union and China
as “imperialist”. While this gung-ho isolationism attracted hard line
Marxist-Leninists fed up with both Soviet and Chinese “revisionism” (and
Realpolitik), it repelled pretty much everyone else, soon forcing the Hoxha
regime to make some tactical adjustments, usually in the direction of
pro-Soviet regimes in the Third World, but also Khomeini´s Iran – regimes Hoxha
should logically have opposed if adhering strictly to the anti-Soviet (and
anti-everyone) line. But this was still in the future when “Kinas brytning med
Albanien” was published.

The book is
divided into three sections. The most voluminous one is a collection of angry
diplomatic (or not-so diplomatic) notes from the Albanian and Chinese Communist
governments regarding the Chinese decision to break off its economic aid to
Albania. I only skimmed this section. Please note: Albania was so backward that
*Mao´s China* (hardly a power house of advanced technological development)
could give it economic aid! This section ends with a sarcastic comment (funny
when coming from Maoists) about how Albania sent a delegation to India to
request economic aid from them instead… But sure, maybe India was more backward
than China back in 1978? The second section contain the famous editorial “The
Theory and Practice of Revolution”, published in the Albanian Communist organ “Zeri
i Popullit”on June 6, 1977. This, then, gives the official Albanian position on
the ideological rift with the Chinese. The final section is a response from the
SKP to the Albanian polemic. The SKP doesn´t really argue its pro-Chinese line (really
pro-Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping), essentially just repeating all the usual “Three
Worlds Theory” talking points. What struck me when reading the article was how
brazen it was – the SKP freely admits that in the event of a Third World War,
they would support the United States and NATO against the Soviet Union! And the
SKP regarded a third world war as inevitable…

Of course,
SKP´s weird blend of Stalinistic Maoism and Swedish anti-Soviet nationalism
didn´t pay off (as far as I know). The proper Swedish authorities still regarded
them as unreliable reds. Today, the ex-SKPers have change their line again, now
supporting *Russia* against the Western alliance, presumably confirming the
deepest fears of the Secret Service. I suppose the left behind Maoists might
still be taking their marching orders from oblique editorials in “People´s
Daily”, although I suspect the Chinese no longer give a damn. And I frankly
wonder if they gave a damn even back in 1978!